


Echoes

by purple_bookcover



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, M/M, felix is bad at feelings, punch away the sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24559501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_bookcover/pseuds/purple_bookcover
Summary: After Lonato's death, Ashe sits in the Cathedral day after day, staring at the vaulted ceilings, empty and alone.Felix isn't good at talking about feelings, but he knows another way to help Ashe get his grief and rage out.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 50th fic! And I couldn't ask for a more special and wonderful way to do it. The shipping is semi-light.
> 
> This is a collaboration with @beanyflavor, an amazing artist who did [an illustration of this fic](https://twitter.com/beanyflavor/status/1269011505120411654?s=20)! (THE IMAGE DOES CONTAIN PLOT SPOILERS - linking it both up here and at the end if you want to avoid the spoilers for now.)

Silence never truly fell within the Cathedral. The air constantly thrummed, heavy with reverberations. The echoes loitered like ghosts, entombed among the peaks of the vaulted ceilings. 

Even when Felix entered the building late, so late the only illumination came from candles lit at the far edges of the room, that hollow hum murmured in his ears, reminding him that this place was never vacant. 

Someone sat in one of the pews, head tilted back as though they were watching the specters of sound bounding around those jagged heights. 

Felix needed no light to identify the lone supplicant. It was the same person it always was, the same person who sat here day after day, staring up at nothing, muttering to himself, pleading with ghosts. 

Felix had watched for too long. And though Ashe might act like himself outside of this haunted place – might perform well in practice, might smile in the dining hall, might greet everyone during class – he always bared himself here, like he was dashing himself against the sharp corners and jagged edges of the Cathedral’s severe architecture. 

As he had so many times before, Felix padded silently down the aisle between the pews, sitting a few rows back from Ashe, settling slowly so the bench would not creak and give him away. He didn’t know if it mattered. Ashe seemed so lost within himself that Felix might not be able to reach him even by force, let alone accidentally. 

Felix watched Ashe, though there was little to observe. Ashe was still and silent, staring at the ceiling as he always did. 

Even so, Felix felt like he could almost hear the memories playing out in Ashe’s mind – the sight of a battlefield filled with his classmates, the image of his adoptive father riding in to challenge them, the sound of Lonato’s shouts, of his defiance, of his refusal to surrender, even when Ashe pleaded with him. And then, most horribly of all, the visceral portrait of Lonato’s death at the hands of Ashe’s friends and comrades.

There’d been celebrations. Congratulations. All the fan-fare that went along with vanquishing a foe. 

But this was no foe. Not for Ashe. 

So he sat here every evening whispering at the ceiling. Whether he was praying, pleading or admonishing, Felix did not know, but it made little difference in the end.

Felix stood. The bench groaned. Ashe did not so much as flinch, if he noticed the sound at all. Still, Felix was careful shuffling out of the row and back into the aisle. He approached Ashe a step at a time, like when he was a child and would creep up on a frog or lizard he meant to catch in his hands. 

Ashe’s collar was far easier to capture. 

Ashe did not gasp, merely blinked, moving his gaze from the ceiling to Felix as though remembering who and what Felix was. The water in his eyes turned them into translucent stained glass. As he focused on Felix, the liquid slipped down his cheeks, not tears so much as statements of fact. 

Felix hauled Ashe to his feet and started moving, dragging him along by the collar. Ashe grabbed for Felix’s hand, but more to steady himself than to break free, apparently. He stumbled along in Felix’s wake, his stuttering footsteps loud among the quiet echoes of the churning cathedral.

Only when they exited the building did Ashe finally say, “Where are we going?”

They’d reached the bridge. The moon lit the cool stone. The wind that cut across the bridge was like a wall dividing the monastery: Behind them, the Cathedral and all its ghouls; ahead, the dorms, the dining hall, the town, all the things needed for living. 

“You’re going to hit me,” Felix said. 

“What?”

Felix didn’t explain further, just kept pushing across the bridge and into the halls beyond, until they reached the shrub-lined paths that led to the training room. 

It was closed at this time of night, but Felix knew from experience that no one bothered locking it. Why should they? They had a school full of expert fighters. If the students wanted to overexert themselves training, who among the knights or faculty would stop them? 

The training room was even darker than the Cathedral, and far more silent. Sound seemed to die against the close walls and low ceiling, leaving nothing but the crunch of Felix and Ashe’s shoes over the stone floor. 

Felix hauled Ashe to the center of the room, far from walls, doors, dummies, weapon racks, everything. Then he pulled Ashe before him, setting his classmate hardly a step away. Finally, he released Ashe’s collar.

“Well,” Felix said. “Go on.”

“What do I do?” Ashe said.

Felix ground a growl between his teeth. “Whatever you want.” 

“I don’t … want anything.”

That was a lie. Ashe might not be screaming, but his feet were set like he was expecting Felix to swing at him. His hands were tense, ready. His shoulders were slightly hunched like he was preparing to protect himself. Felix didn’t know much about using the right words, but he knew what a body coiled like a spring meant. 

He pushed Ashe, who stumbled back a step, but caught himself due to that balanced, light stance. That fighter’s stance.

Felix advanced, pushing Ashe again. And again. Bullying him across the training room. Every time, Ashe caught himself lightly and easily. 

Felix pushed harder, pushed in earnest, and Ashe stumbled back several steps, nearly falling. When he righted himself, he glared at Felix.

A smile tugged at the corners of Felix’s mouth. Ashe’s footing changed. He positioned sideways now, front leg sturdy, back leg meant for pushing forward. He didn’t put up his hands, but he didn’t need to. 

It was an aggressive stance, not unlike the way Ashe positioned on the battlefield. The last time Ashe had stood this way, he’d been shooting at townsfolk from Gaspard, people he’d grown up around. His mind might have been hesitant to target them, but his body had been ready. Ready to fire. Ready to harm them. Perhaps to kill them. Even as his heart ached so plainly even Felix had been able to see it.

The contrast was jarring. It made Ashe sloppy on the battlefield. Felix had only narrowly blocked an axe meant for Ashe’s head, an axe Ashe hadn’t even noticed. When Felix cut the attacker down, Ashe’s eyes went gray. Empty. 

They were bright now, like leaves unfurling in the sun. They might have been beautiful, even narrowed with hatred, but Felix never got an opportunity to find out.

Ashe barreled at him, a blind rush. Felix set his feet and squared up. When Ashe rushed into him, Felix was ready, catching the smaller boy, only stepping back a pace or two before Ashe’s momentum dispersed. 

Ashe grabbed at him, grabbed at Felix’s shirt and his arms and his hands. Felix fought back, trying to get a hold on Ashe’s wrists. Quick as Felix was, Ashe was quicker, at least tonight; he wriggled free of Felix’s grip at every opportunity. His hands were nimble, clever, and Felix struggled to keep them under control. Ashe managed to clutch the front of Felix’s shirt. All at once, he yanked Felix forward and their foreheads collided. 

Both students tottered apart, dazed. Felix blinked, feeling his forehead, his nose, searching for blood. He could feel a lump already forming, but he wasn’t bleeding.

He managed to right himself, to shake off the fog threatening to cloud his mind after the strike. It was a good, decisive blow. Felix felt his mouth curl into a smirk as he faced Ashe again. 

Ashe looked a bit dizzy himself, like his own aggression had startled him. That wouldn’t do. This wasn’t the time for thinking. It was the time for doing. 

Felix lunged at Ashe before he could get lost in his head again, grabbing him by his jacket. Ashe fought back instinctively, scrabbling at Felix’s wrists. He managed to get a good hold on one and twisted it in a way that made Felix hiss and jerk back. 

“They don’t teach that one at the Officers Academy,” Felix said.

“I had to learn how to fight long before I showed up here,” Ashe said.

“Good. No reason to bother with etiquette then.”

Ashe snorted a bitter laugh. “When did you ever care about chivalrous etiquette?” 

On the battlefield, Felix didn’t waste time with etiquette. There was no right or wrong form – there was only the form that kept him alive. And if that meant putting his sword through some of Ashe’s countrymen, well, Felix had had little choice in the midst of a skirmish. 

He suspected that excuse provided little comfort to Ashe and he did not bother uttering it. 

Instead, he circled Ashe, searching for a weak point. Ashe mirrored him. His hands were up now, defensive, but ready to strike. Both fighters’ feet whispered in the still, deadened quiet of the training room. Felix could hardly even see the doors, the dark was so thick, but he did not need to. All he needed to see right now was Ashe. His silhouette conveyed all the words Felix required. 

Felix waited, feinting occasionally. At first, Ashe would flinch at these ruses, but this quickly fell away. Then, at last, Ashe attacked.

Felix planted his feet and met the blow. Ashe’s punch was solid. Felix felt the sting shiver through his arms as he absorbed it. 

He didn’t realize he was smiling until Ashe drew back and glared at him. “This is funny to you?”

“No,” Felix said. 

Ashe’s face screwed up tighter, lip curling, eyebrows knotting together. “Then why the hell are you smiling at me?”

“If you’re so angry, hit me.”

“Fine.” Ashe’s voice cracked through the training room, flattened by the closeness of the walls, loud but incapable of reverberating against soft padding and stuffed dummies and trails of carpet. The training hall was truly silent aside from the ragged breaths and shuffled feet of the two people within it.

Ashe swung. Felix let the punch glance off his arm. It hurt, but Felix had little time to dwell on it. Ashe was already swinging again, using his offhand almost as naturally as his dominant one. It was an ugly way of fighting, inelegant and efficient and brutal. No one trained to fight this way; they survived by learning to fight this way. 

Felix knew little of Ashe’s background aside from his being a commoner. Nor did he particularly care. But this – these wild blows, the way he ducked even lower, the audacity he had rushing in closer despite his small size – they suddenly made Felix curious. Felix knew about Lonato taking Ashe in, of course, but something had come before that, something that explained this desperate, dirty, life-or-death brawling Ashe exhibited now. 

Felix wanted to know more.

He smacked aside another punch before offering one of his own. Ashe dropped nearly to the floor. Felix stumbled back. Too late. Ashe was already rising and Felix was off-balance.

Ashe got his arms around Felix’s middle. The momentum that had carried Ashe up from the floor now sent both of them crashing back down to it. They landed in a heap, but even here, Ashe was somehow in control of the chaos. He ended up on top of Felix and pinned his wrists to the ground before Felix even felt the floor hit his back.

Ashe panted over Felix. There was a wild look to his eyes, like this really was life or death, and for a moment Felix feared whatever latent survival instinct he’d stirred awake inside Ashe. A thrill followed that, a surge of victory. This is what he’d been after; this was the truth behind that dead, blank, gray look Ashe had worn like a funeral shroud for weeks on end.

Ashe hunched over even farther. His silver hair fell over his face, concealing it. Felix heard nothing, but he could see Ashe’s shoulders shake and hitch. Ashe slid his hold up from Felix’s wrists to his hands, slotting his fingers between Felix’s. 

Felix’s chest tightened. He didn’t move, not even when he saw a tear fall from behind that veil of silver hair, not even when Ashe melted all the way forward, his forehead against Felix’s chest. Felix stayed as he was, let Ashe cry against him, let the sobs rattle loose the squeezing hand gripping his sternum. 

Ashe was still holding his hands, gripping so tightly it nearly hurt. It was several long minutes before his crying quieted, smoothing out to weary sighs. “Why?”

Felix wriggled a hand loose. He had no idea what to say, no idea what words he could possibly summon to answer that plea, even if he was the sort of person to whom words came easily. He wasn’t. Not by a lot. So instead he used his free hand to grip Ashe by the bicep. 

Ashe looked up. His face was wet and haggard, exhausted, haunted. Shadows clouded his eyes like echoes trapped in high, sharp ceilings. 

He wiped at his face and sat up, staying right there on Felix as though that wasn’t intensely strange. 

“He wasn’t a bad man,” Ashe said. He watched Felix as though seeking confirmation.

“I know,” Felix said.

“Only the bad guys are supposed to die.”

Felix looked away for a moment. If only that were true. If only the evil-doers were reliably the ones who perished when things went bad. 

“Life isn’t a storybook,” Felix said. 

“Even so.”

Felix made the effort to look back up at the boy sitting on him, to meet his eyes, and, if only for a moment, to use that fleeting contact for all it might be worth. Felix wasn’t someone to whom words came easily, wasn’t someone who could share a meaningful glance, or hardly any glance at all. 

But he did know loss. He did know unfairness. He did know what it felt like to etch the word “why” into his throat and get no response. 

“Even so,” he said.

Ashe lowered his head again, a fresh tear slipping down his cheek. He sniffled, then pounded a fist down on Felix’s chest. It didn’t hurt, there was no heat behind it, but Felix found himself reaching for that bunched up hand, setting his own hand over that taut fist. 

“Would you like to hit me more?”

Ashe paused a beat. 

Then he laughed.

It was almost a cough, ragged, shredded by weeping. His fist uncoiled. He hunched, hands pressing against Felix’s chest as he steadied himself against the laughter rocking his body. 

Finally, he looked at Felix, smiling through the wetness shining on his face. “You’re a weird guy, Felix.”

“I’ve heard.”

Ashe got off him at last. He helped Felix to his feet. 

Felix merely waited. Perhaps they’d fight again, perhaps not. Either way, Ashe’s body looked relaxed, almost limp, depleted. It wouldn’t last. Felix knew that firsthand. But it was an outlet for all that pressure and sadness and anger. Ashe could let out the steam a little at a time before it cooked him alive. 

“I’m not gonna hit you again,” Ashe said. 

“Alright.”

“But I’d like to sleep in your room. The floor is fine.”

Felix blinked, cocked his head to one side. “I don’t see how that will aid you.”

Ashe smiled as though trapping a laugh behind his lips. “It just will. Let’s go, OK?” 

With that, he looped his arm through Felix’s and they started off into the still, quiet, unresponsive night.

**Author's Note:**

> I just love them a whole lot and think they'd be good at bonding over grief and teaching each other new ways to cope with those feelings. Felix is so action-based and Ashe would be better at the emotional side and maybe together they can actually heal (or at least bang it out). 
> 
> [LINK TO GRACE'S INCREDIBLE ARTWORK](https://twitter.com/beanyflavor/status/1269011505120411654?s=20)
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/purplebookcover) (18+ please).
> 
> I respond to every comment. Thank you, friends!


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